“I was the fly in the ointment: Old man Ochoa offered me the business that Jackie had been planning to take from him. She convinced the family lawyer, Danny Romero, to kill old man Ochoa. As the last blood relative she’d more than likely get Authentico Foods,” I said. “She would inherit the business, fly off into the sunset with Sloane’s ten mil and leave Danny hanging out to dry. Unfortunate for both of them, you busted in on old man Ochoa’s murder and Danny, being the skittish type, put two in you.”

“Ain’t that Shakespeare kind of shit?”

“Yeah,” I said. “The CliffsNotes version. Anyway, all of this in an effort to make a fast and big sale to the mysterious Mr. Sloane, who was using Vic Bronson as a front to set up ghost towns in Detroit. Luxury off-the-grid safe houses for very dangerous people.”

“That’s a goddamn shame about Jackie Ochoa,” Tomás said. “She was a good kid. Smart as hell.”

I told Tomás about my infiltration of Vic Bronson’s compound and about his daughter—which led to the Cleaner.

Tomás went off like a Roman candle in a fireworks factory.

“That hit-man guy from the bank job?” Tomás bellowed. “You pulled in a favor from an assassin? Jesus, Octavio! Estás loco?”

“I just may be crazy,” I replied. “But he’s really not too bad of a guy.”

“He’s a contract killer wanted by governments!” Tomás said. “Any other surprises I should know about?”

“He’s currently employed by our government.”

“Jesus Holy Christ,” Tomás said, slapping a palm to his forehead. “This is why people don’t vote.”

I told him about Bojing—the Albino—and Xiang, Bojing’s pathological assistant, who were the leading edge of all of this. How they suspected me of ripping off ten million of their cash and twenty million in negotiable bearer bonds. I skipped the parts that involved the letters EM embossed on a dead man’s shoes and—as I’d learned thanks to Dr. Bobby Falconi’s intrepid scientific investigation—the exclusive Ecuadorian shoemaker Ernesto Manta. If I told Tomás, that would make him an accessory to a murder I hoped to commit very soon.

“Them’s the motherfuckers that desecrated Joe Louis’s fist with Lincoln Quinn’s head?”

“Them’s the ones.”

After a moment, Tomás burst out laughing. He slammed a hand on my shoulder and said, “Octavio, my boy, you live a seriously fucked-up life.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Don’t I know it.”

“I still want to send a bullet up Danny’s ass,” Tomás said.